The apotheosis of the collectivization campaign: the role of Komsomol

The authors have studied the role of Komsomol in the agricultural reforms during the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the highest rates of collectivization were registered. The source basis of the research includes the documents of the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History and the State Archive of Socio-Political History of Tambov Oblast. The majority of the sources are introduced into scientific use for the first time. Komsomol is viewed as a sociocultural phenomenon. The comparison of the documents from different hierarchical levels, from the Central Committee to the primary organization, allowed the authors to impartially analyze Komsomol activities, and identify forms and methods used by Komsomol organizations to stimulate young people's economic and mass work in the countryside in the midst of the collectivization campaign. It is shown that in the period of explosive collectivization campaign Komsomol members became chief Party assistants on economic and administrative issues. The special role of Komsomol members in the establishment of collective farms is testified by the fact that many collective farms were named after the Young Communist League. Komsomol members were responsive to the dispossession doctrine, in many ways this fact is explained by a high percentage of poor peasantry among the Union. Young people tended to perceive the reality "in black and white"; they believed that, after having eliminated the enemies, they can easily build a "glorious future". Establishing collective farms, some Komsomol members used threats, violence and provocations, that is why peasants started to see them as conductors of a hateful policy. Peasants had to respond to violence: murders, anonymous letters with threats and assaults against Komsomol members were frequent enough. At the same time the documents testify that a considerable number of Komsomol members tended to avoid the immediate struggle with the "class enemy". The neglect of the Party's and Komsomol committees' resolutions and anti-collectivization agitation prove mass resistance of Komsomol members against the state policy. This leads to a conclusion that Komsomol was not an integrated organization. The Party had to perceive the Young Communist League not only as a subject, but also as an object of the collectivization campaign. Young countrymen, who were not collective farm members and Komsomol members, who manifested sympathy to the dispossessed, were immediately excluded from the Union. According to the Regulations, any Komsomol member was to struggle against any kind of deviations from the Party's "general line". If previous studies contained many examples of how Komsomol fulfilled the organizational and economic function in the period of collectivization, this study proves that Komsomol was endowed with security and repressive functions. Confrontation of Komsomol members and peasants became one of the integral features of the situation developed by the spring of 1930. According to the authors, considering young people's tendency for extremist actions, sharp escalation of the conflict on the part of Komsomol members was quite probable.

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